


The Pale Shade of Blue

by yunyu



Series: Clouds and Rain universe [2]
Category: Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors
Genre: Aftercare, Age Difference, Alternate History, Arranged Marriage, Awkward First Times, Blood Kink, Bondage, Choking, Dark, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Dominance, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Falling In Love, Femdom, Hate at First Sight, Hate to Love, I'm here for a good time not an accurate time, Insults, Large Cock, Love at First Sight, Murder, Now kiss, Pregnant Sex, Slapping, Sub Drop, Switching, Verbal Humiliation, Violence, Whipping, let's just say it's not their blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/pseuds/yunyu
Summary: Fate changes faster than the death of lightYou supply the envy and I'll provide the spiteReflections cutting every face in twoCasting shadows in the pale shade of blue-The Birthday Massacre, "Blue"She didn’t love him. Not at first. He had ached for it, for a time despaired of it… but he had learned to please her, learned to become admirable to her, and learned all the more just how amazing she was.And he had gotten her love.(This work is compatible with both the Clouds and Rain universe and the Instructress, even though those two universes are not compatible with each other.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FakeStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FakeStars/gifts).



> I wasn't going to post this until I had more written, but FakeStars was so enthusiastic in her reblog on Tumblr that I decided I would go ahead and post the first chapter. If you're here for the stuff in the tags (I'm not judging, man), that's going to be in later chapters. Patience.
> 
> I am very familiar with the historical facts, legends, and theories about the era, and have in fact read many of the texts in the original Chinese, so if you think you need to correct my "errors", save your time. I use the real history when it suits my purpose of entertainment and exploring interesting concepts. If it doesn't I discard it.
> 
> Historical Sima Yi's father did not die until he was about forty. Sima Yi married Zhang Chunhua when she was 13 and he was 23; she gave birth to their first (recorded) son Sima Shi when she was 19, and also two other recorded sons and one daughter. He was an ungrateful douche to her when she was older, and had several other wives that he favoured over her; only her sons, in her later life, honoured and respected her. If the historical Sima Yi could read this fic, he would hate it, and that makes me very happy.
> 
> A historical anecdote stated that Sima Yi had a physical quirk called "wolf head", that he could turn his head and look over his shoulder nearly 180 degrees, like a wolf. Cao Cao had heard this rumour and tested and found it to be the case when he called out to Sima Yi from behind. This was seen as a omen that Sima Yi was untrustworthy. Honestly Dynasty Warriors as a series doesn't do enough with the wolf symbolism for the Sima clan, they should do more. They're a total wolf pack.
> 
> I do not like to write fic where underage characters have explicit (that is, on page) sex, but in this case I actually wanted to explore how difficult it must have been for teenage girls of the era to marry older male strangers and immediately be expected to have sex with them. However, in my timeline he does not marry her until she is seventeen, because even so I really didn't feel comfortable with writing her any younger than that. Honestly if I could have pushed it to eighteen I would have but it doesn't work with the timeline of my other works.

Sima Yi was not allowed to speak to his father unless first spoken to.

He was not allowed to sit in his father’s presence, only to kneel or to stand.

In fact, he was not allowed to _be_ in his father’s presence unless his father asked for him to come.

But this day, though his father hadn’t sent for him, he went into his father’s bedroom, sat next to his bed, and spoke.

“Well,” he said, looking at his father’s face, “so even you can die.”

His father didn’t answer, as was only natural for a corpse.

Sima Yi reached out his hand and touched the corpse’s face. It was quite cool. He sighed deeply, then got up.

Before he opened the door, he paused and arranged his face into a suitably bereft one.

“By heaven, he really is dead,” he said mournfully to his father’s widow and the assembled servants. “We must call the rest of my brothers immediately.”

———

It was the custom, when a man’s father died, if he was engaged, for his fiancée’s family to send over an offer to break the engagement on account of his great sorrow. In reality, the expectation was that this would merely be an opportunity to inform the girl’s family of the new delayed schedule for the wedding, which would now have to wait until after the man had finished mourning his father, a year and two days.

So Sima Yi was not surprised when he received a visit a few days after his father’s death from a servant from the Zhang family.

His father had arranged for him to marry Zhang Chunhua, a girl of only twelve, when she was marriageable next year at thirteen. Sima Yi himself had never met the girl.

It should have been even more of a useless formal visit than necessary, really. The wedding had already been scheduled for over ten months in the future; the death of his father need only delay it by weeks.

But Sima Yi, with great solemnity, when the servant announced the Zhang family’s willingness to release him from his contract of marriage and to revisit the matter at another time, said, “Thank you. Indeed I am too stricken with grief to think of marriage. I will certainly inform the great Zhang family if that changes.”

The servant, who had recited his message correctly but without any interest, jerked up his head from his kneel with his jaw open.

“You may go,” said Sima Yi, already returning to the book he had been reading before the servant interrupted.

He didn’t look up until the servant left and the door had closed.

Then he laughed.

Sima Yi’s father had hated his laugh. “You sound like a bad villain from a melodrama,” he would say whenever he overheard it; not that Sima Yi ever laughed much around his father.

He was free.

He didn’t need or want a wife of any kind, much less one that was a little girl.

If he didn’t have a family, he wouldn’t need to support a family.

If he didn’t need to support a family, then the small piece of land he had inherited as second son would be entirely sufficient in its income for all his life.

If he was sufficient in his income, he would be able to decline any official appointment and any service to any lord.

If he was not in service to anyone, he could live alone, read books, write, play music, occasionally see the few people he actually wished to see, and never have to deal with imbeciles ever again.

He was free!

He kept laughing, he felt like he would never stop.

———

A year passed.

Sima Yi declined a position as a clerk in the local government.

Another year passed.

Sima Yi declined a position as a reporting officer for the local government in the imperial capital.

Another year passed.

On a clear autumn morning, Sima Yi received an invitation to take a position as a clerk in the office of Lord Cao Cao, the Minister of Works. He was very poetic and erudite in his regretful declining of same.

Declining a position always put him in a good mood. When he received an invitation that same fine morning to attend a wedding banquet of Zhang Wei, the brother of his one-time fiancée, he laughed, shrugged, and decided to accept. Why not? He hadn’t been to a wedding for some time. It would mean dealing with fools, but there would be plenty of wine and food, wouldn’t there?

———

“Sir.”

Sima Yi had been telling a really engaging story to some friends, so when an unfamiliar female voice interrupted it, he was irritated. He turned his head back over his shoulder, intending to give the servant or whatever a good telling off, but the angry words died on his lips.

Lips were exactly what he was looking at; full and delicately painted, moving from a smile to an _O_ of surprise. A straight nose, with two large eyes on either side, lovely brows arching over them; her hair half-up and half down, framing her face with beguiling tendrils.

“Sir,” this beautiful creature repeated, but in quite a different tone, “how do you do that?”

Sima Yi flushed, turned his head back, and turned himself to face her properly, bowing with his hands clasped. “Just a little trick of mine, my lady.”

She was attempting now to turn her own head back over her shoulder as far as he had done, but she could not even come close. “I cannot do it at all. That is astounding! I have never seen such a thing. Are you really Master Sima Yi?”

“That is my humble name,” he said. “May I know your great name, my lady?”

She laughed, and her laugh was as delightfully intriguing as the rest of her. “You don’t know it? You will make me lose even more face. How unforgivably rude of you.”

He blushed even deeper as his friends behind him laughed to see the always unflappable Sima Yi so flustered.

“I suppose on such a happy occasion for my brother I should be merciful,” she said. “My humble name is Zhang Chunhua.”

Zhang Chunhua?

 _This_ was the girl his father had contracted for him in marriage? Impossible. That Zhang Chunhua couldn’t be more than sixteen; she couldn’t be the delicious woman in front of him.

This Zhang Chunhua tilted her head. “Nothing to say? And I have heard you described as so intelligent and well-spoken.”

“I must confess my confusion,” he said. “I know of a girl by that name; my father’s unfortunate passing prevented my marriage to her, but…”

“Yes,” said Zhang Chunhua, her smile widening, “that is what they told me you said at the time. It is rare to meet with such a filially devoted son that he cancels his engagement altogether out of grief; that is why I simply had to take this opportunity to speak with such a man.” She brought her hands together and bowed, and numbly, he bowed back. “Now that I have done so, I am content. Good evening, sir.”

She turned and glided off, no less exquisite from behind as from the front, as his friends laughed louder and louder.

Sima Yi sat back down, barely hearing how his friends were teasing him.

He had been defeated, utterly defeated, by the girl who could have been his wife. What an extraordinary girl… no, she was the _only_ extraordinary girl he had ever met. Her voice, her words, her face, the way she walked… oh heaven. Oh heaven!

The rest of the wedding he had nothing to say to anyone. He had no eyes for anything but her.

Towards the end of the evening he managed to get close enough to her to speak again.

“Lady Zhang,” he said, “are you married?”

“I am not, Master Sima Yi.”

“Are you engaged?” he pursued.

She laughed again. “Is your mother in good health, sir?”

“My mother?” He blinked, it seemed like such a random thing to say, and she had ignored his question. “My mother has already passed, long ago.”

“Ah, that is truly, truly unfortunate! If she lived, you could have done me the distinction of breaking off our engagement on the grounds of parental death twice; I would have been the only girl in China to have been so, I am certain! I crave distinction, you see; my shameless ambition must be why no other family wants me as a daughter-in-law.” Despite the acid severity of her words, her face and tone was as serene as ever.

“I see,” he said, although he was utterly lost and bewitched.

She looked at him for a minute, then said, “Am I meant to ask you the same questions, sir?”

He wished he could blame the redness in his face and the stupid slowness of his words on alcohol, but he had barely touched the wine all night. “I am single.”

Lady Zhang looked at him for another minute, then crossed her arms. “Are you attempting to goad me into unladylike behaviour? This is the third time that you are making me speak without being spoken to. I know I started this by approaching you so outrageously, but there must be a limit.”

“I don’t mind that,” he said. “I want to hear what you have to say.”

For the first time since he’d seen her, she lost, for a moment, that perpetual calm pleasure. Her brow creased a moment only, then it smoothed out and she was utterly expressionless. And yet somehow, on her, this lack of expression made her look terrifying and unworldly like an avenging goddess. “I have nothing more to say to Master Sima Yi. For the last time, sir, good evening.”

He watched her walk off without being able to come up with words to stop her.

———

Five days after the wedding, Sima Yi hired a go-between to approach the Zhang family on his behalf.

He could not do anything else. He hadn’t been able to _think_ of anything else since the wedding banquet. He’d spent every moment analyzing her words, her expressions, her movements. Sometimes he’d think for a moment that he understood her; then he’d remember some other subtle detail which would throw out his theory.

He couldn’t stand not understanding her. He couldn’t stand it! He had to understand her. He had to _have_ her.

The go-between came back the same day, overjoyed at perhaps the easiest job she had ever had. The Zhang family was eager, she said, to resume the engagement, on the same terms, or even a lower bride price, if Master Sima Yi found that a higher one, in view of his father’s death, would impede his ability to provide for his new family. As for a wedding date, Master Sima Yi could name it!

He did so, rewarded the go-between handsomely, and laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're here for the tags: the tag "awkward first times" applies to this chapter, but not the other tags. Those are for later. This chapter is rather dark.

He hoped he’d see her when he went to sign the wedding contract, but the Zhangs were exceptionally, excruciatingly correct in their behaviour when he came.

The bride price was lower than what his father had negotiated originally, but only by a little. He assumed this was merely from her age. At seventeen, she was certainly not yet an old maid but rapidly approaching it. Still, the fact that she was still available at all! He had gotten lucky, beyond lucky. She had made all those comments that he had made her lose face, and that no one else wanted her for a daughter-in-law, but he did not take them seriously. This world might be full of imbeciles, but inability to recognize beautiful girls was not one of its failures. She could not have lacked for interest. That her pride and sharp tongue had scared off other families was probably closer to the mark. He didn’t care about that. He had no parents for her to need to cater to.

He didn’t see her again until his actual wedding, in fact. Despite the death of his father, he was still one of a large family, so he could not avoid throwing a lavish banquet. And he had seven brothers. Seven extremely obnoxious brothers, now that their father’s dour influence was no longer checking them.

Sima Yi’s house was small, and even the master bedroom could barely contain all the people who came to _nao dongfang,_ make a noise in the bridal chamber. They were most of them so drunk, however, that they talked over each other. Sima Yi, having surreptitiously altered his clock earlier, suddenly pointed out how late the time was and hustled them all out before anyone could remark on how bright the sky outside the window was for so late in the night.

When he returned back to his room—to their room—his new bride was still sitting on the foot of the bed, her hands demurely folded in her lap, her face invisible behind the opaque red veil.

“Hold on, I’m going to check around before I do anything else,” he said to her. “I wouldn’t put it past some of them…”

She remained motionless as he turned back the covers of the bed, checked the pillows, looked beneath the bed, made sure the window was securely latched, and checked in the wardrobe.

It seemed he had managed to get them all out before any of them could manage to plant any practical jokes to ruin his night. Sima Yi was highly pleased with his foresight.

As if anything could ruin this night.

He walked over to where Chunhua still sat, and began to take the pins holding her veil on out. When he revealed her face, it held no real expression, but there were dried tear tracks running through her make-up.

It didn’t bother him that she had cried. Brides did that, didn’t they? It was good luck.

“How are you feeling, my dear?” he said.

She blinked; her eyes, which had been staring at him so blankly, suddenly became intent. “What do you mean?”

“Am I being too familiar too soon?” He smiled, not upset. “May I call you Chunhua, then?”

“Of course—but it isn’t that. Why are you asking how I feel?”

“Because I care how you feel,” he said gently, but the wariness on her face did not ease. “I wanted to know if you were tired, or suffering from any discomforts, for example.”

“Oh,” she said, still no more relaxed. “I’m not bleeding, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It had been, but only part of it. Still, she seemed to have understood the major point of his question, which was to give her an out from having sex that first night. She was not attempting to do so.

The erection under his robes could hardly get any harder.

“Would you like to undress yourself, or shall I help you?”

“I suppose you can do yours and I can do mine,” she said, and stood up.

Efficient, if unromantic. She turned her back to him, and he could have chuckled at this little, perhaps unconscious, attempt at modesty. As if the backside revealed as she pulled away her dress wasn’t just as intoxicating to his eyes.

She folded the clothes as they came off and set them neatly atop a table when she was down to her _xieyi_ , the string-tied underwear, and nothing else. Then she paused, still with her back to him, with her hand fidgeting with the string, as if hesitant to finish.

“I’d like to do that,” he said softly, and she almost jumped, apparently not having realized he had walked up so closely behind her. She jerked her hand back from the string and crossed her arms over her chest as he undid the knots on each side and let it fall to the floor.

He looked at her face. She had closed her eyes and she was bracing herself. For what? For him to plunge into her somehow right there? How much did she know about sex?

“Let’s go to the bed, alright?” he suggested, and she offered no resistance when he gently pulled her by the hand and to the bed.

Chunhua opened her eyes and immediately looked down. Sima Yi had not yet removed his loincloth, but the head of his cock was already peeking out the top, straining against it. He saw her eyes widen and widen even more.

Being one of eight brothers conceived in rapid succession by a father who often seemed to marry a new wife before the previous one was cold in her grave, and with a large extended family and many close friends to boot, over many years of sharing bedrooms and swimming naked together, Sima Yi knew he had a comparatively large cock. It had pleasures to it but drawbacks as well—he had been flatly turned down by a prostitute at a brothel once.

_“If I take him, I won’t be able to serve anyone else all night!” she had insisted, and the madam, seeing Sima Yi, had not pushed it. He had to settle for a handjob._

_“It’s always the skinny ones with deep voices, isn’t it?” another prostitute had remarked idly when he left._

“Is that…?” she whispered, and then flushed and put her hand to her mouth.

He could not help chuckling a little. “How much did your mother tell you?”

Chunhua pulled her hand away from her mouth. “She… I thought she told me everything, but she didn’t say… she didn’t say it would be… that big… she said it would be like this…”

She put her hands up about a hands length apart.

“Mine is not that much larger than that,” he said humbly. “It won’t be impossible, trust me… in fact, you may come to be glad of its size in time…”

That pulled her shocked gaze away from his cock and up to his face, where she got an offended look, as if she thought he was mocking her.

“I’m not joking, but it doesn’t matter. I know it won’t be easy for you tonight, but I’m going to be patient, I promise,” he said. “Here, I’ll let you see what it looks like.”

Sima Yi unwound his loincloth.

“It’s too big,” she said, backing away from him on the bed, “it’s definitely too big, that can’t go inside me!”

He wanted to laugh, but he restrained himself. “It can and it will, my dear.”

“No,” she said, her breath coming fast and shallow, “no, it can’t, I don’t want to.”

“You need to relax,” he said, as calmly as he could. “It’s alright. This is part of being a wife.”

She made no answer to that. She didn’t back away any more as he came closer to her, but her breathing didn’t slow down.

“Lie down and let me touch you,” he said. “It will help you calm down and prepare, I promise.”

Chunhua watched his hand go down between her legs without making a move or a noise to stop him, but as soon as he actually touched her, she squealed and clamped her thighs shut around his wrist.

“Shh, shh. It’s alright. Let me touch you. It’s only fingers, they’re not very big, are they?”

Sima Yi leaned forward and kissed his wife as she reopened her thighs. She whimpered into his mouth as he slipped a single finger inside her and rubbed her clitoris with his thumb.

He broke the kiss and pulled his hand away, rubbing his wet finger and thumb together, his mouth dry. “You see? It’s okay. You’re ready…”

“I’m not ready,” she said, but he was climbing over her. “No, wait, I’m not ready.”

“You are, Chunhua. I know it’s your first time, but your body was meant for this. You don’t have to be afraid. There may be pain but it will pass.” He bent down and kissed her dry lips. “I’m going to enter you now, alright?”

He waited a few seconds. She didn’t say it was alright, but she also didn’t say it wasn’t. She didn’t say anything at all, just stared up at him with her wide, frightened eyes and the air puffing in and out of her mouth.

“Chunhua, tell me it’s alright,” he prompted her. “You can do this.”

“It’s alright,” she whispered.

He bent down and kissed her, and kept kissing her as he slowly pushed into her body for the first time. Immediately she was writhing underneath him, groaning against his lips, her nails scratching at his back. Her pussy felt absolutely incredible. He broke the kiss to tell her so.

“Take it out,” she begged before he could say it. “It hurts, take it out, take it out!”

“It will only hurt for a moment—”

“No! It hurts! It really hurts! Take it out!”

“Shh, Chunhua, calm down—”

She was crying and she wouldn’t stop begging long enough to hear him. “Take it out! Take it out, take it out, take it out, take it out, _take it out, take it out, take it out—”_

“It’s out, Chunhua!” he practically had to shout at her. She was hyperventilating, sobbing and shaking.

At the sound of his voice, she immediately curled her legs to her chest and rolled over, hugging her knees.

“Don’t touch me!” she sobbed when he tried to put a comforting hand on her back. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t I can’t I can’t!”

“I won’t make you,” he said, “Chunhua, it’s alright, I just want to comfort you.”

She let him put his hand on her back. He sat there silently, waiting for her anguish to lessen enough to speak to her.

When she was no longer sobbing, he said, pain in his own voice, “It won’t always be like that…”

She didn’t respond in any way.

Sima Yi looked down at his wife, at the blood stain slowly drying on the sheets.

“Do you want me to leave?” he said.

Chunhua nodded, without looking at him.

He took his hand off her back, got up, put his robe on, and left via the hallway connecting their rooms. Over to _her_ room, the room he’d never intended for her to ever sleep in. He had never wanted to be apart from her.

He sat on the bed. His cock was still hard, still sticky from her. He looked down at it. It was faintly tinged red.

_Did I really hurt her so badly?_

———

When the maid called him for breakfast, Chunhua wasn’t in the room.

He sat cross-legged at the low table and picked up his spoon, but did not eat, simply stared at the steam wafting up from the bowl of millet porridge.

“Husband.”

Sima Yi jerked out of his miserable reverie and looked up. Chunhua was standing in the doorway, while the maid placed a bowl of porridge on the table. “May I speak to you privately?” she asked, staring at the ground.

“Of course. Leave and don’t come back unless we call,” he told the maid.

When she was gone, Chunhua remained still for a moment, and then stiffly walked forward and knelt next to him, bowing low, never once looking at him.

“I am extremely embarrassed and ashamed at my poor behaviour last night,” she told his knee. “I have no excuse for my disobedience. I do understand what is expected of me and I will not fail in the future.”

Sima Yi let out a breath, and smiled. “I’m not angry with you,” he said. “You were a virgin. It will become easier for you, as I told you. Go have some breakfast, you’ll feel better.”

She got up, and still didn’t look at him. Her face was expressionless as she knelt in proper ladylike posture at her place.

Sima Yi wished she had looked at him, he wanted to show her with his face that he truly wasn’t angry, he only wanted her to enjoy him. Even so, this was a good sign, wasn’t it? His own appetite returned, and he began to eat. Across the table, she took up her spoon as well.

———

The rest of that first week of marriage passed exactly like a Confucian exemplar of womanly perfection said it should. During the day, she did not raise her eyes to look at him, ever; she did not speak, except in simple answer to a question he asked, with the most humble and self-effacing language; she did not begin to eat until he had done so; she prepared him tea, weaved, and embroidered fabric; she did not venture out of the back of the house unless called by him to come out.

He constantly did call her to come out, to be in the room with him while he read books, wrote calligraphy, or played the qin. She would never do more than silently kneel there, and somehow he could not come up with the words to invite her to discuss things with him.

At night, she spread her legs open on his bed and silently endured as he spent himself into her.

Every minute aspect of her behaviour was such that even his father would have praised her as perhaps one of the few decent women in this imbecilic world.

Sima Yi did not know how to reach _her_ , the arch and glorious woman who had ensnared and bewitched him from his very first glance of her. The face of the woman lying beneath him on the bed or across him at the table was the same, and certainly it was still a very beautiful face, but the eyes now… frankly, he didn’t like to look at them. He was afraid of what he saw, of what he would see if he let himself do more than glance at them.

What could he say to her? She was doing nothing wrong; exactly the opposite, in fact. She behaved precisely as a devoted wife should. Wasn’t this a proof of proper womanly feeling?

On the seventh night, as she lay with her back to him, on her side, as she typically did just after he had finished fucking her, he cuddled up to her back. He felt her body reflexively twitch a bit in surprise as he touched her, but she immediately reined herself in and made no further movement or sound. He put his arm around her and lifted his head a little to see her face. Her eyes were closed.

They lay like that for a while, superficially so intimate, yet it was like there was a yawning chasm between them that he didn’t know how to cross.

In a fit of desperation, he suddenly asked her: “Chunhua, do you love me?”

There was a long silence. Was she asleep?

“It’s not like you to ask a question you know the answer to,” her voice came at last. It was cold, maybe a little tired.

She was precisely right. It was part of what had made this week so difficult; he couldn’t bring himself to come up with that kind of stupid quizzing questions to ask her just to begin conversation, and since she answered open-ended questions like _What do you think of this piece, Chunhua?_ with _It is as my husband thinks it is_ or something equally quelling, he couldn’t get anything started.

He could curse himself. Why _had_ he asked her that?

His arm was around her, his cum was inside her… she was his _wife…_

“What can I do to make you love me?”

Another pause, but a short one. Then she laughed. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh since her brother’s wedding.

“Is _that_ what you really wanted to ask?” her voice was low, sweet and savage. “Don’t you think you should be satisfied with what you have? I have given you _nothing_ to complain about since that first night.”

His mouth was dry. “I know… I know that, but…”

“But what?” She still didn’t roll over. “But you’re not satisfied. You have to have my _heart_ too, is that it?”

“I didn’t marry you because I wanted a wife,” he said. “It isn’t as a perfect wife that I want you… the woman who spoke to me at that wedding… she…”

“Oh, I understand you entirely!” she said, and laughed again. “You don’t just want to conquer my behaviour. You want to tame that _harpy_ that you met. You! You really think I will tell you how to do that? You really think that you’re _capable_ of it? I warn you, _husband._ Be satisfied with what you have, if you are really as _intelligent_ as they all say.”

“You don’t understand me at all,” he said, and at that, she actually rolled over and looked at him, stared into his eyes. The moonlight lit her face all too well, showing him her utter loathing.

“Don’t I?” she said. “You ruined my life. If you had broken off the engagement in the honourable way, compensating my family for your broken faith, I could have easily married someone else. But you were too clever for that, weren’t you? You used a loophole, and you _ruined_ me. Everyone talked about it! What had Sima Yi found out about that shameless tomboy daughter of the Zhang family, to make him behave in such a way? It must have been something _awful_. Heaven knows my father beat me enough to try to find out what it was! I used to beg heaven myself to tell me! But the years passed and my parents eventually accepted it, accepted that I would always be in their house. My brothers discussed which of them would have to take me when they died. And I was content enough. At least I would never have to please a man, I thought. But then. _Then._ Then you came to my brother’s wedding banquet. I should have pled illness, I should never have been curious enough to look at you, let alone speak to you. I brought this awful fate on myself, I know it all too well. Because you, _you_ are the sort of man who only wants what he is told not to have. And that’s the reason you want my heart. But you will never, _never_ get it. That’s the one thing you can’t make me give you. Do you understand, husband? You’ll have to be content with my silence and your _books._ God! If I were a man, I wouldn’t sit around reading _books_ all day if I had even one tenth of the talent they all say you have!”

She laughed in his frozen face scornfully, and turned back over. His arm was still around her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Now we're finally getting into it. From here on out, I will not be putting content warnings at the beginning of chapters. I assume you've read the tags and you're up for it.

The morning after he learned that his new wife loathed him to her marrow, Sima Yi woke at dawn.

He got up and dressed quietly. Chunhua was sleeping and showed no signs of stirring. He looked down at the quiet rise and fall of her back, the hair falling over her face.

Asleep, she actually looked her age, he thought… she really was just a girl, wasn’t she? A girl who’d suffered for years from his thoughtless action, and then suddenly learned she was to marry him after all, and who had it in her head that he would not be satisfied until he had destroyed her mind as well as her freedom and body.

Where to go from here?

He could divorce her, of course, but if her father beat her repeatedly simply for having her engagement broken when she was only twelve years old, he could not imagine how he would react to having his seventeen year old daughter returned to him after a mere week.

No, that was out, that was entirely out… he did not even want to divorce her, anyway. Even knowing how she hated him, he was still transfixed by her.

She was very contemptuous of his intelligence, but he knew she didn’t know the truth of it. He _was_ extremely intelligent. If he put his mind to it, he could figure this out. He could figure anything out that he truly wanted to; he had never failed before.

Despite himself, he smiled. It was going to be very difficult, she was certainly not going to help him figure her out. But still, despite her dramatic declaration that he would never, _never_ get her heart, if he could find a way to make her happy, surely she would prefer happiness to misery? She was not a fool, he was sure of that.

So what to begin with?

Well, his major advantage was that she was clearly determined to be an impeccable model wife. She wouldn’t refuse his commands or his advances. He could use that. He had hoped that they would learn how to please each other together… but under the circumstances, he was going to have to learn how to please her first.

He padded over to his study to assess what books he already possessed, and what he would need to acquire.

———

When he sat down for dinner, he caught her actually look up at him for a moment before she flushed and looked back down.

It had probably surprised her that she was absent from both breakfast and lunch, but despite this small break, she immediately went back to her facade of the perfect wife.

“Did you have a productive day, Chunhua?” he said as the servant brought out the soup.

“I accomplished what my poor ability allowed, husband,” she answered.

“I rode into the city to order some things,” he said. “I would have asked you if you needed anything before I left, but I did not want to wake you. However, I will have to go back in a week or two to retrieve my orders, so please let me know before then what you require.”

She was silent for a few minutes, then said very quietly, “The loom would make better fabric if the heddles were replaced.”

“Certainly,” he said, “but you will need to tell me precisely how many and what kind. I am afraid you will need to be patient with my ignorance while I learn.”

He saw her press her lips together in an irritated way. Aha. She certainly was hostile to his good intentions.

———

That night, in bed, he said good night to her and closed his eyes without touching her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” her voice said.

He reopened his eyes.

“Don’t say trying to sleep,” she said when he opened his mouth. “I mean this game you’re playing.”

“Well, I thought you would refuse me if you needed a break, but it seems like you’re not going to communicate with me about how you feel for the time being,” he said. “So in the interests of your physical comfort and recovery, I’m taking a break anyway.”

“Not just that,” she said. “It must have infuriated you. If you’re planning some revenge on me, I swear…”

She broke off there, whether because she couldn’t come up with a good threat or some other reason, he didn’t know.

“It didn’t infuriate me,” he said. “I felt many things about what you said, but not fury. Not at you, at least.”

“Don’t tell me that you’re still labouring under the delusion that you can make me fall in love with you,” she said. “I didn’t think you were such a fool as that.”

“So you think it wouldn’t be better to find a way to enjoy your husband than to suffer for the rest of our hopefully very long lives?” he countered. “I didn’t think you were such a fool as that.”

“You’re trying to trick me,” she said. “You want me to misbehave so you can divorce me.”

“I don’t want to divorce you,” he said. “Besides, don’t you know the seven reasons for unilateral divorce? They’re very specific. Lack of filial piety to my parents—they’re dead, you’re safe. Failure to bear a son—hasn’t been enough years, and not a matter of behaviour anyway. Adultery. Jealousy. Venereal disease. Gossiping. And finally theft. Misbehave any other way you like.”

She laughed, but it was a surprised laugh, and she cut it off. Still, for just that moment, she was unspeakably beautiful.

“I’m still in love with you,” he said.

“You are an idiot,” she said, and tossed herself down with her back to him.

He closed his eyes again.

———

Sima Yi’s carefully planned seduction of his wife did not go at all according to his schedule. He had not even obtained all the reading material for the phase one research when things between them changed forever in almost an instant.

Four days after she called him an idiot—four days in which she had barely spoken ten words altogether to him—she opened the door to their—his—bedroom while he was undressing, held up a letter and said without preamble, “Did you really decline a position with Lord Cao Cao?!”

He turned; he had on a loincloth and nothing else, his nightgown in his hand. “Yes…”

“Why?!”

“Because I don’t want an official position with anyone,” he said. “Why were you reading my mail?”

“It’s not in the seven reasons, is it,” she said with gritted teeth. “He is the chancellor! We could go to Luoyang!”

He couldn’t help laughing. “I grew up in Luoyang. Believe me, it’s a city more stuffed with imbeciles than any other. Imbeciles with the power to sentence you to death by slow slicing. The only wise decision in this era is to stay out of it.”

The letter crumpled in her hand as she shook with fury. “Why does he even want you?!”

“Lord Cao Cao is exceptionally good at identifying men of talent,” said Sima Yi, “and making them die for his power. That is how he got to where he is. And he may indeed go even higher, but hundreds or thousands more men of talent will need to die for that. I’m not eager to be one of them.”

She dropped the letter, strode towards him and slapped him across the face. While he was reeling with the shock of it, she was hissing, “You coward. You lazy, good-for-nothing fool. You selfish ass! You—”

She suddenly stopped. He looked at her with his own hand pressed to his cheek, and saw that she was staring down at his loincloth.

Chunhua laughed. “Are you serious… this is exciting you?” She looked up at his face, and he saw her laugh spread into a wide, genuine smile. “Look at you…” she marvelled, and put a single finger to his other cheek and oh so delicately stroked it. “Did you _like_ that?”

Shame was warring with arousal in his gut. “Chunhua…”

She looked back down at him, and arousal surged ahead as she put her lip between her teeth and put her hand to his loincloth. “So this is what you like about me… you really are disgusting, aren’t you?”

“Chunhua,” he said again, in a near whine, because she was stroking him up and down through the cotton.

“I bet you really want to fuck me right now. Are all those other fools just impressed by the size of your cock? You men think so much about your cocks, don’t you? Pathetic.” She fumbled a bit with the loincloth to rip it off impatiently, but she didn’t touch it once it was free. “Did you touch yourself the night we met?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Thinking about me?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Show me.”

He didn’t think. He just put his hand to himself and began pumping, looking at her regal face, her smirk, her arms crossed just beneath those beautiful full breasts, her tongue licking her lips—oh God.

“Chunhua,” he panted as he worked his hand on himself furiously. “Chunhua, please, let me have you.”

She sneered. “You could just order me to do so.”

“But I want you to _let_ me,” he begged.

“Lie down on the bed,” she ordered.

He did so.

“Did I tell you to stop touching yourself?”

“But Chunhua, I won’t last—”

“Good,” she cut him off. “Cum all over yourself. Let me see you make a mess of yourself. That’s it. You want to, don’t you? Disgusting _boy._ ”

“Haaa,” he keened as his semen spurted into the air, arced up onto his stomach, splattered his thighs, dripped onto the sheets, and coated his hand.

When his reason began to return to him and he reopened his eyes, he was afraid to look at Chunhua, but he couldn’t resist, he had to know what she thought.

Her eyes were sparkling. She was breathing faster, and her wide smile was victorious.

“Well,” she said, in a tone that was quite different from anything he’d heard from her yet, “maybe I can find something to enjoy in this marriage after all.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was an incredibly strange time of Sima Yi’s life. Much later, he would realize that it must have been just as strange for Chunhua, but at the time, he understood her less than ever.

She would make him beg to enter her, but when he had begged enough and she willingly opened her legs and let him in, she would freeze up underneath him and become as corpse-like as before.

She once marched herself uninvited into his study while he was studying a Taoist manual on cunnilingus and had him demonstrate on his knees while she leaned against the wall. When he had actually made her orgasm she had yelled stop, panted against the wall for a moment while fixing him with a look of accusation that he did not at all know how to respond to, straightened her clothes, and stalked out again.

She would grind against him in his lap until he came without ever entering her, while the entire time she mocked and derided him, and afterwards she would order him to clean her off.

In the middle of the night after the first time she came from vaginal sex, he feigned sleep while listening to her crying.

He had never had more pleasurable sex or more powerful orgasms.

He had also never been more unhappy.

She hated him, she still really hated him. In the moment of sex her hatred somehow felt so good, but immediately afterwards he felt awful. Ashamed and despicable. Every word she said was true, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t enjoy it if he wasn't as bad as she said.

When he came home with the new heddles and the new books, he took them both into his study with him.

He flipped through the books, but they had nothing to tell him about this bizarre folie a deux that he was living.

“Husband.”

Sima Yi had been staring blankly at a page when he jerked to attention. “Chunhua?”

“Was the trip very hard?” she said. “You seem…”

He straightened himself up. “No. There are your heddles. Are they what you wanted?”

She approached his desk, picked them up, and looked through them, then set them down again. “Yes, they are.”

“Good.”

She began drawing a lazy figure eight with her finger on his desk. He watched the slender tip with its elegant nail trace back and forth in its arc. “I was hoping, a little bit, that you would bring back the wrong ones,” she said in a soft voice. When he looked up at her face, there was a faint heightening of the colour in it; she was looking at her own finger. “I had a marvellous idea to punish you.”

His cock was wishing he had brought the wrong ones back now too. “Oh,” he said, lamely.

She stopped the arc and let the finger drag off the edge. “Another time, perhaps.”

With that, she left.

Sima Yi leaned his head onto his hands. He was not stupid. He was _not._ But he had definitely just missed something. What was it? What _was_ it?

———

The weeks passed.

Sima Yi’s depression deepened.

As for Chunhua, her behaviour was unpredictable. For the most part, outside the bedroom, she stuck to the Perfect Wife role she had carved out in the beginning, except for those times when she invaded his room without being called. In the bedroom, everything was by her rules, and her rules were that he was a disgusting little vermin whose pleasure at her sadism amused her.

When the servant brought a tray of large, steaming meat buns for lunch, he perked up, selected two with great zest, and breathed the steam in for a moment with a smile and closed eyes. When he reopened his eyes, Chunhua was looking at him with puzzlement.

He flushed. “They’re my favourite… I haven’t had them for a while.”

Chunhua selected one for herself. “Are they really? You know, I know how to make them.”

She was actually volunteering information about herself. Making conversation? Was this happening?

“Do you?” he said. _Do you? DO YOU? Is that the best you could come up with?!_

She smiled. “Yes, but they’re such a lot of work and time… making the dough, letting it rise, making the stuffing, rolling the dough, assembling the buns, letting them rise, and then steaming them. Frankly, I don’t really find them worth the effort.”

“Maybe I only like them because I’ve never had to cook them,” he said. “What do you like to eat most, then?”

She actually tilted her face away as if she was embarrassed. “Pickles.”

He laughed. He had laughed a little around her before, but this was the first really good one. Pickles. Of course. He picked up a meat bun and took a bite.

“You have quite a distinctive laugh,” she said as he chewed.

He swallowed. “Believe me, I’ve heard as much. People tell me they knew about it before they even met me.”

“You are the kind of person who is talked about,” she said, and he saw her face was serious now. “Even women know who you are, when you haven’t accomplished a thing. And they all say you could be truly great. So why don’t you try?”

The bubble of the good feelings popped and evaporated as if it had only ever been a dream. “I am not lying when I say that there is no room in the capital but for one great success amid ten thousand dead failures and all their clans with them. With your opinion of me, you think I could succeed at all? Let alone to be that one in ten thousand?”

“My opinion…” she began, but then the servant came back in.

“It’s another letter from the capital, master.”

———

Lord Cao Cao was not taking no for an answer.

Sima Yi decided to be paralyzed.

He already felt like there was hardly any point in getting up, so it really wasn’t much of a reach.

Chunhua slept in her own room. He was positive she knew he was faking, but she didn’t question him about it.

About a week after the latest letter from Cao Cao, she came into his room uninvited.

“I have some good news, husband,” she said, kneeling next to the bed, her smile wide and beatific. It almost seemed like a dream. “I believe I am carrying a child.”

Sima Yi said, “Oh. Alright.”

The lovely brows furrowed. “You’re not even pleased?”

He sighed. “I told you once before that I didn’t marry you because I wanted a wife.”

“But this will be a new person who is partly you,” she said, still puzzled. “It doesn’t thrill you?”

“I have six younger brothers,” he reminded her. “I am not overly fond of children, to be honest.”

“It will be different when it’s your own, you’ll see,” she said.

Now he was the one who was puzzled by her eagerness for him to get excited. “If you say so.”

She tilted her head and seemed to be studying him, then she said gently, “Maybe it would help more to think of them as partly you, and partly me?”

He didn’t answer.

Chunhua shook her head, but she was still smiling as she rose from her kneel. “I’ll let you get the rest you so obviously need to recover, husband.”

Her glance over her shoulder before she shut the door was coy.

Yes, she definitely knew he was faking it.

Why was she letting him do so?

Every time he thought it wasn’t possible to understand someone he was living with less, she did something that blew away the little he thought he knew.

———

Cao Cao sent spies, openly and covertly, to check if Sima Yi was faking his illness.

The bastard really, _really_ didn’t want to take no for an answer.

The more that Sima Yi heard about what was going on in Luoyang and around the empire, the less he wanted to get involved.

Rumour had it that Cao Cao was about to start a major campaign south, in fact, having just solidified his control of the entire north.

It was an incredibly stupid move, really… Cao Cao was letting his superiority in numbers go to his head… if he was doing such a thing, he either had no good advisors or he wasn’t listening to them.

In neither situation did Sima Yi want to get involved.

Surely Cao Cao would eventually forget about him, if he just laid low here?

And yet.

Cao Cao could be terribly vicious.

Kong Rong was a 20th generation descendant of Confucius, but as of this month, his body and that of his entire family was left butchered in the street like dead vermin. No one of name had dared to even pick up his body to bury it. And what had Kong Rong ever really done to Cao Cao? Nothing more than speak ill of him.

He was in too deep now, that was certain. If Cao Cao found out he was faking…

It was almost enough to really paralyze him.

Chunhua seemed to understand the danger they were in, though they never spoke of it openly.

He kept waiting for her to tear him apart for it, but she never did.

Instead she asked him this and that about what he thought of the political and military situation, as she brought him new books and took away the ones he was finished with. She revealed herself to be fully as shrewd and cunning as he had always suspected; though she lacked formal education, she quickly grasped his explanations.

It was the kind of intellectual discourse with her that he had yearned to have from the beginning, but he was too anxious to find it enjoyable.

“What game are _you_ playing, Chunhua?” he asked tiredly one day instead of answering her latest question about the Battle of Guandu.

“I am trying to understand you.”

“What’s to understand?”

“More than I thought at first,” she said. “Much more.”

“A riddle, rather than a game, then.”

Chunhua looked down at herself. Her belly was just beginning to look unmistakably pregnant. She was kneeling next to his bed, while he was perfectly well. She had taken over management of the entire property without a murmur, while he lay in bed reading books hour upon hour. God, he really was scum.

“I’m sorry, Chunhua.” He closed his eyes as he spoke. It was odd how he could be so tired when he did nothing. He had never done anything.

If she said anything before he fell asleep, he didn’t hear it.


	5. Chapter 5

On a bright spring morning, Sima Yi made what ought to have been a fatal mistake.

He had told the maid to put out his books to air and brighten in the son. Books were the only possession he truly cared about, each page of each volume was a precious store of knowledge from earlier men of intelligence. But there were limitations of the bamboo and the mulberry paper that they were stored on, and one of them was a perilous tendency to rot and mould. The heat and shine of the sun clean the pages; though it might fade the text a little, he could carefully touch that up himself.

Someday, at least. When he no longer had to pretend to be paralyzed.

He dozed off, but he was awakened by a loud crash.

Sima Yi blinked around, confused. It was dark? How long had he been asleep?

There was a sudden flash from outside the window, and then another boom.

Then began the sound of the rain.

Sima Yi didn’t think, he only reacted. He leapt out of the bed, ran down the hall, wrenched open the door to the courtyard, ran out into it barefoot, and began frantically grabbing his books and rushing them to the windowsill beneath the eaves, the closest partially sheltered place.

“Master?”

Sima Yi froze. He had an armful of books in each arm. The rain was pelting him, the thunder was rumbling. He turned his head over his shoulder.

The maid was staring at him. She was an extremely stupid woman, who had not shown the slightest suspicion about his sudden convenient paralysis, but even an imbecile could figure out what was going on here.

“Master was faking it?” the maid said. “But I told Lord Cao Cao’s men…!”

He saw the fear enter her face, and he knew it was all over. She was afraid that she would be punished for not telling on her master by a higher authority. There would be no way he could stop her.

“Husband,” came another woman’s voice from behind the maid. “You should not be out of bed, no matter how you worry for your books. I’ll take care of everything.”

He was soaking wet when he got back to his room. His hands trembled as he put the books he had not bothered to let go of down on a table, then walked to the window and looked out at the thunder, lightning and rain.

That he had his head in a noose that he had tied himself was certain; the only question was how many other people who were going to suffer from this. Chunhua, without question, though her pregnancy might save her… no, what was he bothering with false hope? Emperor Xian’s wife had been pregnant when Cao Cao had ordered her killed for her father’s crimes, and Cao Cao had not even delayed having her strangled, even when the emperor himself tried to intercede for her. If Cao Cao did not spare the unborn child of an emperor, what hope was there for his child?

The rain suddenly petered out and then stopped. The sun shone again, as if nothing had ever happened. The birds sang again. In the branches of the tree nearest his window, magpies had made a nest, and the pleasant scene seemed to be mocking him all the more.

His brothers… their families…?

Lost in these terrible thoughts, he did not know how much time had passed when he heard the door swing open behind him.

Sima Yi whirled around, irrationally terrified that the noise was Cao Cao’s goons there already to drag him away, but it was not.

It was Chunhua. Chunhua with an angelic smile, face splattered with blood that had soaked into her collar. Blood dripped from her hands, and from them, she was idly twirling a piece of wire.

“Husband,” she said, “I have eliminated the immediate threat, but it is time for you to end this charade. You have talents, exceptional talents. I also have talents, and I am going to use my talents to make you use yours. If not for Lord Cao Cao, then for someone else. And you are going to choose how today.”

“Chunhua,” he breathed, “did you _kill_ her?”

The smile got a tiny bit wider. “Yes.”

“Where’s the body?”

“In the kitchen furnace.”

Sima Yi let out a short, disbelieving laugh; disbelieving not in her capability, but in his own luck at having so narrowly escaped doom. He had not even thought about killing the maid… His wife was really terrifying. “Chunhua, you saved my life.”

“Yes.” She dropped the wire carelessly and approached him; she had never looked sexier. “Are you going to make it one worth saving?”

“I will,” he promised; she was closer and closer still. “I’ll write to Lord Cao Cao—”

He stopped because she had pulled him into a kiss, and _what_ a kiss it was; passionate and intense and fiery. The maid’s blood was on his face now too; she was leaving handprints of it down his back as she put her tongue in his mouth.

“Chunhua,” he choked as she moved her kisses along his jaw and then, “Oh, God, _Chunhua_ ,” when she began sucking on his pulse point while grinding her hips against him.

He undid the ties of her dress, she undid his belt. Soon his erection sprang free and heavy against her thigh for a moment before she pushed him and he fell back onto the bed. She climbed on top of him and he looked up at her in awe and worship. Most of the blood had come off as they undressed, but there was still a little on her face and hands. Her beautiful full breasts and the swell of her pregnant belly were clean, however.

She slid his cock between her labia and he let out a low hiss as she caressed her clit with its head.

“You look beautiful like this, husband,” she said, “beneath me, blood on your face and lust in your eyes. I want to see you like this often.”

“Please,” he said, “however you want me, Chunhua, please, I’m yours, please.”

Her smile was so wicked, so intoxicating. “You love me even more now, don’t you?”

“I _adore_ you,” he said, and then gasped, because she had just slipped him inside her.

“Tell me more,” she said as she began to ride him.

He clutched at the sheets and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

_Smack._

He opened his eyes and Chunhua was leaning forward. She had just slapped him. “I said tell me more, husband.”

The stinging pain in his cheek somehow made every nerve in his cock sing even higher. He almost didn’t want to speak so that she would slap him again, but he couldn’t disappoint her. “Chunhua, I love you. You are—ah—so amazing, so beautiful, so… ah… I love you—”

Another slap, to the other side of his face. “Don’t repeat yourself. Where’s the golden-tongued Sima Yi that all the lords want to serve them?”

“Chunhua,” he groaned, “Chunhua, it’s too hard to think when you’re, ungh, squeezing me like that, it’s too good!”

“What do you think Lord Cao Cao would say if he saw you like this, with your cheeks so pretty and pink?” she said, running a finger over the sensitive flesh. “With your cock inside a pregnant woman, no less… you depraved man… pervert… degenerate… ruled by a _woman_ … slave to your passions… you bring shame to your name, don’t you. What would they all think about you, if they knew this is who you really are?”

“I wouldn’t care,” he panted, “when you let me have you, Chunhua, I don’t care about anything!”

“Oh?” she laughed. “Do you think you deserve to have me?”

“I don’t, I know I don’t, but I _need_ you.”

“You’ve been such a _fool_ ,” she snapped, and he moaned. “You’ve been an imbecile, _Si-ma Yi._ Look at what you’ve reduced me to.” She put one, still faintly bloody hand in his face. “I had to kill our only maid. Our _only_ servant, husband. With my own hands! And I will have to make dinner with these hands, because _you_ have provided me with no one else! So I think you should suck them clean, don’t you?”

He took her fingers into his mouth eagerly, laved them with his tongue, savoured the metallic tang. She was breathing faster now as she watched him. He was pleasing her, he could _feel_ her pleasure, she was _enjoying_ him—

“You little idiot,” she said thickly, moving her hips faster, “with such a stupidly big cock. All you’re good for is serving me. Beg me to cum for you.”

Her finger pulled out of his mouth with a pop. “Please cum for me, Chunhua,” he said immediately, “oh, God, let me see you cum around me, I’ll do anything, I swear, I swear Chunhua, I love you so much—”

Her head tipped back, she was contracting around him but she didn’t make a sound.

“May I cum,” he asked in a panic, feeling the pressure building, “please, Chunhua, let me cum with you. Chunhua, please, quickly!”

“Go,” she sang out, and his release was so good it was painful, so painful it was good, because she wouldn’t slow down, she wouldn’t stop raising and lowering those beautiful, powerful hips over him.

But eventually she did. She slowed, and she stopped, and she rolled her head in a stretch, and then she was looking down at him again.

Chunhua tilted her head and smiled, almost shyly. “Are you alright, husband?”

He was still breathing hard. “Alright? I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my life.”

She chuckled, and reached out to touch his cheek again. “I was a little rough with you.”

“No, no,” he said emphatically, even though his cheeks were getting even redder than could be explained by her slap, “it was _fine._ ”

“Good,” she said. “I’ll remember that.”

She lifted her hips up to let his cock slide out of her with a sigh, then somewhat awkwardly clambered off the bed. After all, it was rather too much to expect a pregnant woman to get off of a bed gracefully.

“What do you want for dinner?”

“I’ll eat anything you make,” he said.

“I’ll make meat buns,” she said, and walked off, still naked.

His favourite… she was making his favourite.

A smile spread across his face, against his conscious control. Slowly, he sat up and looked around his room, at the wet and bloodstained clothing mingled on the floor.

Sima Yi sat on his bed for a moment, breathing and thinking. Now that he had orgasmed, now that the immediate relief from knowing the maid had been prevented from exposing him was gone, he belatedly realized that the two of them had crossed a line now… well, more that she had crossed it and then tugged lightly upon his leash to have him follow. Tugged was maybe too strong a word, even, he had been only too eager to follow her. To suck the blood of a murdered woman off the hands of her murderess!

He was horrified. He was horrified because he was _not_ horrified. His wife had just killed a woman and then ordered him to take up exactly the fate that he had dreaded all his life! He had chosen a ruthless and cunning she-devil as a bride, and she had told him flatly that she intended to run things from now on!

Why _wasn’t_ he horrified?

Why was he, instead, only looking forward to all that they would accomplish together?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up through the end of this chapter is where I had strong inspiration, so I have no idea how long it will take me to write the next chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

Sima Yi wrote to offer his service to Lord Cao Cao, and to outline his issue that his wife was already six months pregnant, which could complicate any move from Henei to Luoyang, so to please instruct him promptly.

He hoped promptly would take a long time.

Not having a servant hardly seemed to diminish the amount that his wife accomplished. What it did mean was that they could and did fuck all over the house at all hours of the day.

She grew paradoxically more violent and more tender towards him. Both changes thrilled him in different ways.

Once, for instance, he rounded a corner and suddenly Chunhua twisted his body around, threw a scarf around his neck and yanked him tightly against her.

“I grabbed her just like this,” she whispered into his ear, and licked his earlobe. “But with a wire instead of a scarf, of course. She writhed in my arms for a little while…”

He could still breathe a little, but not enough to keep up with the rapid spike in his heart rate, and he began to feel dizzy.

She suddenly let go of the scarf and reached inside his robe to grab his hardening cock. “I did it for you,” she crooned into his ear. “That’s right, just lean back into me, I can take it.”

Indeed, she was cradling him in her arms as she worked her slender fist up and down, paused to caress the tip with her thumb, and sank her teeth into his neck.

“Chunhua,” he whimpered.

“I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt my family,” she growled, and he could have wept with joy to be considered _family_ to her. “We’ll make it so that no one will ever dare, won’t we? Do you need to cum already? You’re so weak for me, aren’t you?”

“Please!”

“Answer my question.”

“Yes, yes, I’m weak, I’m so weak for you Chunhua!”

Her hand let go of him. “Then you need to be stronger. Make me cum first.”

“I…” he whined as she firmly but not roughly righted him on his feet. “What… how do you want…?”

“So stupid!” she mocked. “What is it, _Si-ma Yi?_ No plan? No cunning plot?”

“Not… not with you… Chunhua, I don’t want to trick you, I just want to please you…”

He saw her face soften for a moment and he could have dropped to his knees and kissed her feet to see it. “You foolish boy. How did you get along before you married me?”

“I didn’t,” he said, and as he said it he knew it was true. “My life didn’t begin until you married me. Nothing I did until then mattered.”

“Didn’t it,” she said roughly, and pulled him into her embrace again, but only to start pulling off his clothes. She made a little hum of satisfaction as he fumbled with hers as well, and soon they were both naked.

“Oh God,” he said. He wasn’t much taller than her so he only had to lower himself a little to get his cock inside her standing up, even with her belly between them, swollen with their child. She lifted a leg as if by instinct that he held to his hip to get a better grip and then they were entwined, him not so much thrusting as gripping her to himself, as if he could really lose himself entirely inside her. “Chunhua, Chunhua, Chunhua…”

She laughed into his shoulder shakily. “Why do you always say my name so much?”

“Your name is beautiful,” he sighed, regretting the necessity of having to pull back even a little bit in order to slide into her again.

“Husband,” she said, and then again, “husband,” looking into his eyes, and just in that moment she looked vulnerable, like someone who could actually be hurt, and he knew that he would kill a thousand people rather than let that happen, he knew that he _could_ do it, that deaths were going to come but that the two of them were going to protect each other.

“My dear,” he whispered, _qin’ai,_ intimate and beloved.

———

Sima Yi saw his wife delivered to Luoyang but nothing more of the unpacking, as he was off himself south. Quite a bit to the south, to join Lord Cao Cao in his triumphant conquest of Jiangdong.

Sima Yi did not end up crossing the Yangtze after all. Instead, he met up with a retreating force well north of it.

He knelt before his new lord, the imperial chancellor, the man who controlled the emperor.

“So this is Sima Yi,” Lord Cao Cao said. “I suppose you want to know what has happened at Chibi.”

Sima Yi’s mouth twitched just a little as he considered how to answer this.

“Ah. Perhaps you can tell me what you think happened, then? Without holding back, please.”

Lord Cao Cao was certainly perceptive. Sima Yi took a breath in. Well. This would be the first test. He kept his eyes lowered. “Plague, to begin with… the south is such a hotbed of disease, especially at this time of year. My lord’s northern soldiers would be weak to it. And… Chibi, really… you fought them on the river, at those cliffs? A naval battle… one sailor is worth a hundred soldiers in such a battle, but you would know that… so… how would you counteract such an advantage…? You didn’t tie the boats together…”

Someone shifted to the side, and someone else coughed.

“If you tied the boats together,” Sima Yi said, and he could not keep the ridicule entirely out of his voice, “you would know that a fire attack would come… so the wind must have been in your favour at that point. Even if the wind changed, you would assure yourself that it would not be enough in itself; with due precaution you could prevent a fire attack. Hm. But if there was an offer of defection that you actually believed… that would be the end of it, the end of it all.”

“Call back in his guards,” said Lord Cao Cao, and Sima Yi kept from trembling only with effort.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Did Master Sima Yi receive any messages or visitors on the journey down?”

“None, my lord.”

“Dismissed.” Lord Cao Cao was silent for a moment, then said, “Are you always so accurate in your analysis, Sima Yi?”

“It does not take a great deal of intelligence to determine what has already happened, my lord,” Sima Yi said. “However, if everything I said was accurate… then I wonder only how it is that you are still alive?”

“Their pursuit across the Yangtze was confused and scrambling. My rear guard was easily able to hold them back…”

Cao Cao trailed off because he was hearing Sima Yi’s legendary laugh for the first time. “In their moment of triumph, they could not work together? Oh, what imbeciles. My lord, you have received a setback, I grant; but this alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan… it will doom them, it will ruin them utterly. It may even be worth this defeat, to know that.”

———

“Let’s lift our spirits with some pleasant company,” Lord Cao Cao said, and Sima Yi blanked for a moment.

He couldn’t fuck another woman now that he had Chunhua… he didn’t even _want_ to… He could just go along with it and then leave the prostitute untouched once they were alone… but if Chunhua were to find out that he’d gone to a brothel at all…

“Are you sure this is wise, my lord? Ejaculation dulls the intellect inexcusably at such a pivotal time. I, at least, must keep my wits sharp to make the plans you require,” he extemporized, although he didn’t believe in that Taoist claptrap at all.

Lord Cao Cao rolled his eyes, but didn’t seem overly offended. “Ha! Son,” he called out to Cao Pi, who turned to look at his father, “it seems that Master Sima Yi is of your opinion on sex. How a son of mine…” He shook his head, but he smiled, and wandered off to gather others for his excursion.

Cao Pi approached him then, a slight smile on his young, handsome face, but the smile turned to a scowl. Sima Yi would have been concerned, except that Cao Pi was looking past him. Sima Yi turned his head and saw that Lord Cao Cao was laughing and clapping his arm around his next oldest son, Cao Zhi.

“My brother encourages him in his foolishness with low women,” Cao Pi said in a low voice. “I am entirely of your opinion, Master Sima Yi. It is not as if he were a young man, either, and his health… I have told him he should ejaculate no more than once in ten days, but he laughs at me. And to waste an ejaculation on a woman whose vitality is nearly used up to begin with! There is a place in Luoyang, however… I will have to take you there with me.” He smiled again. “They even have virgins…”

Well, shit. If Chunhua would kill him for going to an ordinary brothel, he did not want to think what she would do if she heard that he had spent a no doubt high price to take the virginity of some unfortunate young girl.

“I have my own mistress in the arts,” he demurred, and Cao Pi’s face shone with excitement.

“You found one?!” he whispered. “I have searched for years…! I suppose I can’t expect you to share her with me.”

“You must be very careful, my lord,” said Sima Yi, in a conspiratorial tone. “Such a woman does not charge money, but she may take everything you have.”

Cao Pi nodded eagerly. “But it is worth the risk, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed,” Sima Yi said sincerely.


End file.
